Evonik to invest €350 million in expansion plans

Evonik plans to construct new facilities for the biotechnology production of its Biolys feed additive (source of L-lysine) in Brazil and Russia. Work has already begun to expand the production facility at the Blair site in the US, completion expected by the third quarter of this year. Total investment will be approximately €350 million.

The aim is to create new capacities for Biolys of nearly 200,000 mt per year in Brazil and Russia. While Evonik will produce some 100,000 mt of Biolys a year as part of the Russian joint venture OOO DonBioTech in Volgodonsk in the Rostov region from 2014, the company is also building a plant at the Castro site owned by the US company Cargill in the Brazilian state of Paraná, which is also expected to become operational by 2014.

Both sites will have excellent access to raw materials. The Russian plant will rely on wheat from the Rostov region and the source material to be used in Brazil will be corn.

Amino acids for animal feed, and particularly MetAmino (DL-methionine) are part of the core business of Evonik, which is currently being expanded. The new methionine plant currently under construction in Singapore, which marks the largest chemicals investment of Evonik to date, is intended to secure a leading market position for this amino acid for the Group. At the same time, capacity expansions have been implemented in Europe for TrypAmino (L-tryptophan) and it was recently decided to expand the ThreAmino site Agroferm (L-threonine).